By Thomas Cottingham
Features Assignment Editor
After about a year and half with drama involving many big names in the hip-hop industry, Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill has released his long-awaited mixtape, DC4, or Dreamchasers 4. Meek Mill, who is known for his fast flow and his “brag rap” lines, does bring the heat in his anticipated retail mixtape, but it does not live up to the huge amount of hype.
As always, Meek commences with an amplifying opener for the majority of his projects. Songs such as the album-titled track “Dreams and Nightmares” and “Lord Knows” from his previous record, Dreams Worth More Than Money, are both explosive first tracks, which is Meek’s specialty. For the opener for DC4, “On the Regular,” Meek starts out with six gunshots, a subliminal jab at Toronto rapper Drake, who references Toronto as “the six.” He continues the trend of using classical music as an opening beat as he does this time with “O Fortuna” by Carl Orff. And he just spits flames. He is angry and ready to feed the fans.
The features on this tape are impressive. Big name artists like Tory Lanez, Nicki Minaj, Young Thug, Pusha T and French Montana bring a lot to the table in terms of verses and hooks, but small-name artists such as the late Lil Snupe and Don Q can also be surprising. Don Q’s very impressive verses on “Lights Out” saves a very generic song. Lil Snupe’s verse on “Outro” might be the hardest verse on the whole tape. Gunordan Banks’s voice on “Two Wrongs” is simply beautiful, and this song even reaches out further with verses from Meek and Pusha T. The low-key featured artists actually do a really good job while big name stars fell a little flat.
On the track “Froze,” which features Lil Uzi Vert and Meek’s girlfriend Minaj was a disappointment. Meek raps about what he always raps about in this track – money, women and Rollex watches. Lil Uzi Vert tends to sound a little annoying in this one, and Minaj’s verse is just average. This could have been the tape’s lead single with a powerful combination of artists. However, more tracks shine brighter than others.
Lanez and Meek team up on the joint “Litty,” which is a standout of the tape. Both artists’ verses are crisp, hard and mean. Toronto singer/rapper Tory Lanez, however, takes over during his sole verse, including a diss at Drake. Both of them rap with their full potential on this one.
Not all of Meek’s solo songs are that incredible except for a couple. The track “Blue Notes” is one of these. The production of this song consists of a jazzy, 70s electric guitar that transitions to a hard trap beat. Meek raps about his past crime, drugs and loss in this very soothing song.
Meek also includes “Tony Story 3,” which has been a long time coming. He continues the ballad of Tony that his die-hard fans followed ever since the first, “Dreamchaser.” This song displays Meek’s proven ability of storytelling and battle rapping skills as he continues the saga of Tony and his life of crime.
Some of the songs that seem to have potential sadly fall flat. “The Difference,” featuring Migos member Quavo, is a generic trap song with an overuse of Desiiigner ad-libs.
“Offended” which features Young Thug and 21 Savage has a pretty slow and boring atmospheric feel and can sound a bit stale. The rest of Meek’s solo songs can be somewhat uninteresting at times as well.
For a short consensus of this tape, just avoid the bad tracks.
cottintf14@bonaventure.edu
